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Ironically, one of Charizard's best teammates in OU is actually the least popular Kanto starter, Bulbasaur. They both function best under the sunlight, and Venusaur can help remove bulky water types early in the game to help clear the way for a choice scarf, solar power Fire Blast. Exeggutor and Sawsbuck can do this as well.

Getting rid of Heatran is also extremely important, so Dugtrio could be an option. It would also help fight the weather war to make sure Solar Power is ready.

Ninetales is a must in OU. SubstituteBellyZard faces too much competition with Darmanitan now in days. The only thing it's really got over the ape is just a little bit of speed, but it has much less power. So, really, you're best just going for Solar Power if you're going to use it in the tier at all.

And, obviously, the dragon's health is going to be lowered quite a bit by solar power and stealth rocks, so folks like Forretress and Donphan can be very helpful. Though if the writers of the POTW are any good(which I'll bet you guys are), that should really go without saying.

Didn't comment for a while oh well.. LoL is too addictive but maybe I will be back :P

I wouldn't call everyone who uses charizard in OU a noob.. solar power have terrifing power if used right it can bea a huge late game cleaner just feed him (LoL term..) just weaken the team a bit beat some counters and you get a sweep with choice scarf in the sun. (beat politoed mainly).
I am not updated with the last 3 months metagame but I guess it's the same since gen 6 is close.

My opinion: charizard is WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY overrated but, also kinda underrated in OU since it can be powerful with ninetales (but actually most people prefer volcarona for better type and stats)

The problem is that even in the sun, it's easily revenge-killed by many common Pokémon in OU, and you don't only have to give it the Sun (because it lacks the bulk to set it up), it also needs Rapid Spin support, and even if it has them, it's still not hard to counter. While 100 Speed is good, many OU common Pokémon outspeed it (Lati@s, Starmie, Terrakion, Thundurus-T, Landorus, Starmie, Garchomp, Keldeo...) and most Choice Scarf users do too, and this, coupled with the damage that Solar Power causes, makes it unreliable. Apart from that, Weather changers are common in OU, so before sending Charizard, Politoed, Hippowdon, and Tyranitar (which counters it easily), must have been removed.

All in all, to use Charizard in a OU team, it needs too much support, and even if it gets it, it may not work, it can be useless.

The problem is that even in the sun, it's easily revenge-killed by many common Pokémon in OU, and you don't only have to give it the Sun (because it lacks the bulk to set it up), it also needs Rapid Spin support, and even if it has them, it's still not hard to counter. While 100 Speed is good, many OU common Pokémon outspeed it (Lati@s, Starmie, Terrakion, Thundurus-T, Landorus, Starmie, Garchomp, Keldeo...) and most Choice Scarf users do too, and this, coupled with the damage that Solar Power causes, makes it unreliable. Apart from that, Weather changers are common in OU, so before sending Charizard, Politoed, Hippowdon, and Tyranitar (which counters it easily), must have been removed.

All in all, to use Charizard in a OU team, it needs too much support, and even if it gets it, it may not work, it can be useless.

But, as a fan favorite, a lot of people won't care and will want to use it in OU anyway.

In fact, I've been thinking about making in OU team around it just for the heck of it anyway. But, I suppose I want to make a lot of gimmicky teams.

In the past, when I have battled Charizard under the use of my friends, no ev training whatsoever of either his or my pokemon. I was able to beat his lv. 100 Charizard with my lv. 79 Golem with just one rock blast every single time. Sure, it might help if he would've taught it earthquake for once (he wasn't that smart), but still. I've always regarded Charizard as a weakling after that.
However, that was before I took a better look at him.

Sure, this fire dragon is really, really... really weak to rocks. But, can't it learn Solarbeam? That practically takes care of the rock and water type weaknesses right there (unless, of course, you are a poor soul who gets stuck facing Politoad or Kyogre... for some reason). For its elecric weakness, it can power throughalmost anything with its massive fire attacks. Give it a sun boost, and that high special attack gets even more deadly.
And, now that he has a new ability, named Solar Power, his already impressive offensive power grows even more, at the cost of a little Hp every turn. All of this combines into one distructive force that has a good probability of sweeping a team right off its feet.

I cannot post a set because I have never used a Charizard. If anyone is thinking about a good pokemon for a sun team I would highly suggest him... and Victini...

Can I just say one thing: please stop using Charizard in Ubers. Please. It's sitting at about 1.029% usage, which is about 1% too high (I'm leaving room here for people who use it for the novelty of using Charizard). I know that having Solar Power-boosted attacks seems so cool, but a Timid Specs Charizard's Fire Blast is hitting exactly as hard as a Modest Specs Reshiram's Blue Flare, and Reshiram has a much better secondary STAB (not to mention half the Stealth Rock weakness, far more bulk, etc.). Reshiram literally outclasses Charizard at pretty much everything of note. Oh but that's not the worst of it, about 58.8% of Charizard in Ubers use Blaze. So yeah...stop doing that.

Even in OU, Charizard isn't so great. If you can keep Stealth Rock off the field and make sure that the weather absolutely does not change, then it's alright. But the vulnerability to Stealth Rock and the passive damage of Solar Power rack up very quickly. Not only that, but if the weather changes, Charizard becomes very, very sub-par. Tyranitar and Politoed easily neuter Charizard, and specially defensive Hippowdon can handle everything but the Specs set locked into Fire Blast.

Now, in NU, Charizard is actually really good. A Sunny Day set can hit like an absolute truck, and unlike OU, there's no permanent weather to mess up Charizard's sweep. Even manual weather is fairly uncommon in NU. Charizard's base 100 speed is also a much bigger deal in NU, where many of the faster threats sit at around 90-95 base speed, as opposed to base 108-110 in OU. The lower stat standards in NU help Charizard stand out even more, since Charizard's base 109 SpA stat is a bit more impressive, beaten only by a small handful of common NU threats. So yeah, use Charizard in NU. Not so much in OU. And definitely not in Ubers.

Charizard is overrated as a fan favorite, I can't drag myself to like it for some reason, maybe it's just because of the over hype about it that irritates me and keeps me away from liking this lizard-dragon.

IMO Charizard could be passed as the worst fire starter in tier placing. Thyphlosion is RU and has the Eruption wrecking and tearing stuff apart, Blaziken has speed boost which is a nuff said, Infernape is pretty viable in OU (where he belongs) and can run a mixed set pretty well, even Emboar seems to fare better with the Head Smash-Wild Charge-Flare Blitz-Reckless/last Ditch Blaze. Poor Charizard has a nasty x4 SR weakness, and yeah...

It's really hard (IMO) to use Charizard in OU efficiently, on paper at least. You need a spinner/bouncer, Ninetales for the sun - Solar Power is probably the only reason why anyone would want to use it in OU, something to keep Heatran and pink blobs in check and Charizard himself, which makes a total of 4 slots. Not very efficient.

Enough with the ranting though, Charizard does pretty well in NU, in a sun team, here's a set

Your Charizard can be your sun setter, or your sun sweeper. I know it might sound idiotic to have Sub on a Solar Power mon, but it keeps poison away nicely, or paralysis. Fire Blast is the STAB, and hits incredibly hard under Sun, though Flamethrower can be used in their place. Air Slash is another STAB of choice, beating grass types and fighting types. Last slot is a variety of choices. Solar Beam can be used in NU, since unlike OU, there is no auto weather casters. Snover was recently relocated to RU, and even if it was NU, the person would be an idiot trying to switch into a fire breathing poke,on.

Can I just say one thing: please stop using Charizard in Ubers. Please. It's sitting at about 1.029% usage, which is about 1% too high (I'm leaving room here for people who use it for the novelty of using Charizard). I know that having Solar Power-boosted attacks seems so cool, but a Timid Specs Charizard's Fire Blast is hitting exactly as hard as a Modest Specs Reshiram's Blue Flare, and Reshiram has a much better secondary STAB (not to mention half the Stealth Rock weakness, far more bulk, etc.). Reshiram literally outclasses Charizard at pretty much everything of note. Oh but that's not the worst of it, about 58.8% of Charizard in Ubers use Blaze. So yeah...stop doing that.

I'll bet it's because a lot of people who use Ubers on Showdown and PO really don't know what they're doing, and are just grabbing teams of their favorites.

Last edited by sbktdreed; 2nd February 2013 at 5:32 AM.
Reason: From a ecent reply.

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Am afraid to say that you have an illegal set there. Acrobatics and dragon dance/belly drum are incompatible, since the distribution didn't give it dd/belly drum .
aside that, the epic fire dragon has seen better days. belly zard is strong, but use fire punch>flare blitz for survivability. Focus punch is an option. standard special zards are seen often in sun, with solar power.

my bad. used to acrobatics being a TM move, i forgot to take a proper look at the webpage T.T
this means Swords dance would have to be used instead of DD/belly drum with a salac berry if acrobatics would be used..... atleast it gets 2 great physical stabs this way... but might not really be worth it.

A speedy sweeper, pretty much. Force a swap out on something such as a steel type, and use that as a chance to set up a substitute. Salac Berry will active instantly if stealth rock is in play, and if not, you can just sub two more times for the effect. Just remember the dragon's HP IV will need to be messed with so it will be at exactly 25%.

Acrobatics will be at 165 power, fire punch will be at 168. After a swords dance, Charizard's attacks should be at 330 and 336 power. Use it in the sun, and Fire Punch will even reach 504 power! It's walled by rock types, but this can be solved with team support. You really won't want to use this Charizard until the very late game anyway. Speaking of rock types, though, you could squeeze in Earthquake or Focus Punch onto the set to handle them.

Charizard, one of those overused fire breathing dragon creatures. Since Gen 4, Charizard hard time switching in nowadays due to Stealth Rock. That doesn't mean it's useless, Solar Power makes it a force to reckon with.

Counters: Good luck switching into this guy as its nearly impossibru. So revenge killing is the best way to handle the beast. Stone Edge and Rock Slide kill him with ease. Make sure to have rocks up as well.

Ok some hints. Run HP ice over dragon pulse. it has less power, but has better coverage, esp. gligar/gliscor, landorus-t/-i/ or hp grass for gastrodon/swampert. Heat rock is useless on the sets suggested, due to lack of sunny day on the sets. infero has very shaky accuracy, so use a different fire move. use fire blast.
physical set. always fire fang<fire punch, due to shaky accuracy. Wing attack is worse than aerial ace. only techni-scyther would rarely use it. aerial ace is still shaky. you only get fighting coverage extra, which isn't really needed. Dig... need i say more than this: the opponent can use this to set up/switch in safely to a flying type. Dragon rush is only a maybe on hone claws set.

A speedy sweeper, pretty much. Force a swap out on something such as a steel type, and use that as a chance to set up a substitute. Salac Berry will active instantly if stealth rock is in play, and if not, you can just sub two more times for the effect. Just remember the dragon's HP IV will need to be messed with so it will be at exactly 25%.

Acrobatics will be at 165 power, fire punch will be at 168. After a swords dance, Charizard's attacks should be at 330 and 336 power. Use it in the sun, and Fire Punch will even reach 504 power! It's walled by rock types, but this can be solved with team support. You really won't want to use this Charizard until the very late game anyway. Speaking of rock types, though, you could squeeze in Earthquake or Focus Punch onto the set to handle them.

i like this. reminds me of gliscor in lower tiers. i def think e-quake should be there, maybe, just maybe over fire punch.

Am I the only one who likes Charmander instead? Well, if only it can have Solar Power in LC........

....if only >.>"

And for anyone curious on Charizard's current tier, basically it's based on its effectiveness in weather. It only works in Sunny weather, and in the RU team, TRs are more favorable than weather one. For more information, go here: http://www.smogon.com/smog/issue20/how_nu

Ah... Charizard... This guy has one thing going for him (besides generally being badass) and that's the raw freaking power of his Sun boosted Solar Power Fire Blast. This thing hits like a nuke, but, that said, after a single Nasty Plot Ninetales hits just as hard, so there's really no reason to use him in OU. Here's a NU/RU/maybe even UU set you can run, but it's generally better to use against something that's going to switch out so you don't take damage while setting up your weather.

So put this out against some Grass type like Sceptile and scare it off while you set up Sunny Day (and pray it's not running HP Rock), and then toast stuff with Fire Blast. Hidden Power (Ground) hurts anything with Flash Fire that can stomach a Fire Blast. Solarbeam is generally what I carry in the third slot for bulky Water Pokemon, but Roost heals off Life Orb and Solar Power recoil, except he generally can't find an opportunity to use it. Flame Charge fixes his slight Speed problem, but, once again, he can't ever really find an opportunity to use it. Sunny Day is self-evident. Also, a Life Orb is used over a Heat Rock because he generally doesn't survive 8 turns, but a Heat Rock can be used if he's on a dedicated Sunny Day team.